Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki has filed a formal complaint with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) against Israel over its minister's threat to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza.

According to the Palestinian official news agency WAFA, al-Malki sent an official letter to IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi on Wednesday, stating that the nuclear threat is "completely consistent with the prevailing discourse in Israel" against Palestinians.

Al-Maliki added that the threat entails "an official recognition that Israel possesses nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction."

In the letter, the Palestinian top diplomat urged the U.N. nuclear watchdog and all of its member states to condemn Israel and take action against the threat of dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza.

Earlier Sunday, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, told Israeli media that dropping a "nuclear bomb" on Gaza is "an option."

Eliyahu was later suspended from government meetings "until further notice," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said.

Netanyahu's office issued a statement in which it described them as "disconnected from reality."

Following the outcry over his remarks Eliyahu later said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that his statement about the atomic bomb was "metaphorical."

Israel has long refused to publicly acknowledge whether it possesses nuclear weapons.